NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyans paid more bribes in 2005 compared with 2004, especially when dealing with law enforcement officers and buying basic services like health care, according to a report released by an anti-graft group on Monday.
The study, the Kenya Bribery Index, compiled by the Kenyan chapter of graft watchdog Transparency International, said Kenyans encountered bribery in 47 percent of their interactions with officials in 2005, compared with 34 percent in 2004.
“To us it seems that Kenyans have accepted bribery as a way of life. We find that Kenyans live with bribery everyday, every minute,” Evelyn Mungai, chairperson of Transparency International Kenya, said at the launch of the index.
The report said the majority of bribes were paid to the police, followed by state-owned companies and local authorities.
“I’m not proud to come here year in year out to tell you that our vital public institutions are rotten,” said Mwalimu Mati, Transparency International Kenya’s executive director.
“What we are calling petty bribery is not as small a problem as we might imagine. Our country is bleeding from corruption.”
The study showed that Kenya’s fight against graft was losing steam. In 2003 Kenyans encountered bribery in just over 40 percent of their dealings with officials.
“Clearly the enthusiasm that was there, that proactive efforts by wananchi (citizens) dissipated at some point,” David Ndii, a research adviser at TI-Kenya said.
“Also the government’s zero tolerance platform has been dealt very serious credibility blows.”
President Mwai Kibaki’s government came to power in late 2002 with a pledge to fight graft, but Kenyans are becoming increasingly doubtful of its ability to win, given its failure to prosecute senior officials accused of involvement in dubious procurement contracts.
Kibaki’s government is grappling with graft scandals linked to a procurement racket, dubbed Anglo Leasing, in which state contracts worth some $200 million went to a phantom company.
The scandal, along with another called Goldenberg, in which $1 billion was looted from state coffers through fictitious diamond and gold exports in the early 1990s, forced three ministers to resign.
